Month: February 2011

Written by Kyle Darbyson for Askmen.com

Strange beer names that inspire empty mugs
When it was originally enacted in 1516, the Bavarian Purity Law stated that beer should only contain water, hops and barley. It’s a simple recipe that hasn’t changed much through the years. So, with these draconian limits governing their product, brewers have been forced to extremes when differentiating their products from competitors. Some spend millions on slick advertising, while others pay a king’s ransom to athletes to pimp their beer. But for smaller breweries, it’s not that easy. Even if they produce a nectar that’s worthy of the Gods, it will rarely raise a blip in the crowded beer market.

So, these microbreweries have found an ingenious method to stand out from the clutter. Freed from the constraints of corporate, focus group-obsessed marketing departments, they’ve been able to develop bizarre, sometimes offensive and always attention-grabbing brand names, which results in strange beer names. It was a grueling bit of research but we managed to find a plethora of strange beer names, and here are 10 of our favorites.Number 10: Fiddler’s Elbow

Written by The Professor

There are a lot of interesting community services and extra things breweries and brewpubs do that most folks don’t know about, like McGuire’s Pipes and Drums: a Bagpipe Band, Pensacola, Florida and The Caledonian Brewery Pipe Band in Edinburgh. These type of bands often appear at brewery related functions, local events, festivals and fund raising events. The Professor thought it best to share something with our readers that brewers share out of the good of their hearts.

Written by Jack Curtin for Craftbeer.com

If there is a tide in the affairs of men, it seems fitting that its currents made 2010 the year in which craft brewers packaging their brews in cans moved from oddity to trend. After all, 2010 marked the 200th anniversary of the can as a food and beverage container and the 75th anniversary of the beer can, which was introduced on January 24, 1935 with the test-market release of Krueger’s Cream Ale in steel cans.Continue reading “It’s in the Can”

Written by Dennis Askew for smallcapnetwork.com

U.S. Brewers really have to be imaginative these days. They are facing the paradox that while sales are dropping, the costs to produce products is increasing in the form of commodity ingredients. Molson Coors Brewing Company (NYSE:TAP) reported yesterday its Q4 net income fell by more than half partially because of ingredient costs.

(States approach home brewing in many ways. It’s still illegal in Mississippi as far as The Professor knows, for example. States like Ole Miss could follow the example set here and include input from home brewers when they write home brew related bills- PGA)

Written by David Steves for the Register Guard

SALEM — Oregon homebrewers may have been barred by a legal quirk from entering their beers and ales in contests, but that hasn’t stopped them from enjoying a lively competition.

The one that played out came to a head, so to speak, Thursday, when a Senate panel approved one of the several bills aimed at restoring homebrewers’ rights to transport homemade beer to contests, festivals and other gatherings.

Posted by Eddie Gehman Kohan at obamafoodorama.blogspot.com

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have joined the home brewing beer trend that’s swept the US, and will be serving a very special White House brew tonight when they welcome guests for the annual Super Bowl party, to watch as the Packers take on the Steelers.

In a special turn of events in the history of White House food creations, one of the White House chefs has brewed White House Honey Ale, a White House aide exclusively tipped ObFo. It uses one pound of honey from this year’s 160-pound harvest of honey from the White House Bee Hive, which sits beside Mrs. Obama’s South Lawn Kitchen Garden.

Upchucked by Ye Old Scribe after being force fed a can of…

Miller/Coors, one of the last tasteless beer mega-whores left in the USA has a “new” idea. A slogan! Scribe is impressed. Impressed there are actually idiots out there that might think this is something “new.”

The slogan is “The Official Beer of EWE!” OK, it’s “you,” not “EWE,” but don’t you think “EWE” more apt?

And get this! They’re willing to bribe you into agreeing with the slogan. You might get to be pictured on their Facebook page or appear in one of their ads if you sign up; attempt to add some respect to this slogan that means NOTHING.

Now Scribe will briefly say something positive about Miller/Coors. At least, if you believe them, they’re going to donate some money to Iraq and Afghan Vets for everyone who does something or other. A little vague. One hopes someone is monitoring those donations, other than the “brewery” making the offer: the one with a history of deceptive marketing. And what has that got to do with the “you” in the EWE?Continue reading “Ye Olde Scribe Presents the Wouldn’t You Rather Puke? Beer Report’”